Sailing Weekly ColumnOnce upon a time, Cowes was a by-word for top-class competition, with the Admiral's Cup considered the unofficial World Cup of offshore sailing. With the decline of the International Offshore Rule, however, that event appeared to have died a death.
But the pendulum appears to be swinging back once more. In the wake of the Admiral's Cup being undone by its pro-sailor agenda, the Commodore's Cup was established. After a shaky start, when it was dubbed the "Comedy Cup", its supporters are having the last laugh as 11 three-boat teams take to the Solent on Monday for a week of racing.
Billed as "the Clash of the Corinthians", the trophy has a long way to go to reach the days of 23 countries sailing, but the omens are positive.
While the bulk of the teams are from Britain and France, there are single three-boat teams from Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, plus an 11th-hour Team Europe entry made up of individual boats from Russia, Belgium and France.
The race schedule is designed to test crews through a mixture of inshore and offshore races and the latter includes a short passage race of around 12 hours' duration on Wednesday.
The RORC Channel Race, on a course of 24-36 hours' duration, starts on Friday evening and, as the final race of the event, counts for double points.
The European flavour to the entry list reflects the strength of the IRC handicap rule in the region, though growing interest in this club racer system in the US could easily see the next event in 2006 having at least one US team.
Such a development would be certain to open the floodgates and lead to Australasian IRC boat entries.
Closer to home, the strength in the IRC fleets in Ireland was evidenced by the many success stories in Cork Week, where all seven handicapped classes had Irish boats in the top three.
Of these, George Sisk's Wow from the Royal Irish YC scored the best of the handful of top-performing boats by taking first overall in Class One.
Of particular significance in light of the Commodore's Cup was Colm Barrington's new Kerr 39-footer Flying Glove taking second overall in Class Zero, just behind Roy Disney's Pyewacket.
